Francia Orientalis, Germany

The Stem Duchies & Marches

The Stem Duchies (Stammesherzogtümer) of Germany were essentially the domains of the old German tribes of the area. These tribes were originally the Franks, the Saxons, the Alemanni, the Burgundians, the Thuringians, and the Rugians. In the 5th century the Burgundians moved into Roman territory and were settled in 443 and 458 in the area that would then become Burgundy. The area they had occupied in Germany, next to the Franks and the Saxons, was occupied by the Franks. When the Rugians were destroyed by Odoacer in 487, a new confederation of Germans formed in their place, the Bavarians. All these tribes in Germany were eventually subjugated by the Franks, the Alemanni in 496 and 505, the Thuringians in 531, the Bavarians at some point after 553, and then finally the Saxons, in a protracted campaign by Charlemagne himself, by 804. When Germany eventually separated as East Francia, the old tribal areas assumed new identities as the subdivisions of the realm, joining Lorraine (properly Francia Media). For the rulers of these, the old Roman title of Dux ("leader") was adopted. It was originally used for a Roman frontier military commander and subsequently was passed down in Greek, i.e. in Mediaeval Romania, as . In German, however, the corresponding title, Herzog, looks more like the translation of a Greek title, stratêlatês, , "army" (stratos) "leader" (elaunein, "to lead"). Thus, the Old High German title was herizoho, from heri, "army," and ziohan, "to lead." This looks very much like a comparable title, voivode, perhaps also a translation, in Slavic languages. On analogy with the German tribes, "duke" was at first used elsewhere for ethnic demi-states, like Brittany and Gascony, and then later as the title for Royal brothers in France, such as the Dukes of Burgundy, and England, beginning with the sons of Edward III -- with the Dukes of Lancaster and York disputing the Throne in the Wars of the Roses.

The Saxon area became Saxony, the Bavarian, Bavaria, the Thuringian, Thuringia, the Frankish, Franconia, and the Alemannian, Swabia. To these could be added the Czech domain of Bohemia, which accepted German suzerainty as a Duchy by 925, later upgraded to a Kingdom in 1158. North and South of Bohemia, the Germans headed east, founding a series of March Counties, or Marches, whose ruler was thus a Margrave (Mark Graf). In the North these started with Meißen and Lusatia. North of them was, appropriately, the North March, which became Brandenburg and then Prussia. Last in the north was originally the March of the Billungers, which eventually became the Duchies of Holstein, Lauenburg, Mecklenburg, and (Hither) Pomerania. In the south, there was Carniola, Carinthia, Styria, and the East March, the Österreich ("eastern kingdom"), or Austria. The future dominant states of Germany, Prussia and Austria, thus began as Marches. On the map shown, the eastern frontier is that of about 1200, which is curiously similar to the boundary today between Germany and Poland. At the time, Poland was already an organized and Christian Kingdom. German advance beyond that point was mainly by the extension of Pomerania, originally effected by Denmark, and by Bohemia's detachment of Silesia from Poland. Silesia then passed, with Bohemia, ultimately to Austria, then to Prussia, finally returned to Poland by Josef Stalin in 1945.

The greatest houses of German Emperors were associated with particular Duchies: the Saxons, the Franconians (Salians), and the Swabians (Hohenstaufen).

Of the original Stem Duchies, only Bavaria really survived largely intact, though the others sometimes had successor states that nearly reassembled the original domains, like Baden and Württemberg in Swabia and Hanover in Saxony.

These lists originally were often compiled exclusively from Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble Genealogy and Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. Much of this has now been corrected and expanded, however, with information from Michael F. Feldkamp's Regentenlisten und Stammtafeln zur Geschischte Europas [Philipp Reclam, Stuttgart, 2002] and, most especially, from Andreas Thiele's Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Parts 1 & 2, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I & II [Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997], Volume II, Parts 1 & 2, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser I Westeuropa & II Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Part 1, Third Edition, 2001, Part 2, Second Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997], and Volume III, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser, Ergänzungsband [Second Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 2001]. Other sources are listed with the tables or elsewhere. The map above is based on p.142 of The Anchor Atlas of World History, Volume I (Hermann Kinder, Werner Hilgemann, Ernest A. Menze, and Harald and Ruth Bukor, 1974). The cited map is labeled, "Central Europe at the time of the Saxon emperors," which is a little confusing, since the northern frontier is much advanced beyond what was achieved for the dates given, e.g. 937-982. The text simply says, "936-7 Organization of the marches under HERMANN BILLUNG and the margrave GERO..." (p.143). Gero was the Margrave of the North March (later Brandenburg). The area to the north may have been assigned to Billung himself, since the map labels it the "March of the Billungers," but they apparently made little headway at the time, and the name did not stick.

Since Franconia is the area of Germany specific to the Franks, around whom Western Europe was unified, with Frankfurt (now Frankfurt-am-Main) as the city long recognized as the capital of Germany, it is disappointing that the list of Dukes seems defective and poorly dated. Since Gordon's list jumps from Conrad I to Conrad VI of Franconia (with an unnumbered "Conrad the Younger"), one is left to suspect that more is known about some other Conrads.

The Fraconian Emperors are often called the "Salians," after the Salian (or Salic) Franks, the sub-group of the Franks that became dominant. This term also turns up in the "Salic Law," the principle that succession cannot pass through women, which was observed in Germany and France but mostly not elsewhere. The Salian Franks, however, were called that because they lived near the sea (salus = "salt"). The inland Franks belonged to several other groups, which collectively could be called the "Ripuarians," i.e. "river" Franks. Franconia was really a Ripuarian, not a Salian, area.

Franconia split into countless states, like Hesse and Nassau. Frankfurt was a Free City until annexed by Prussia in 1866.

Nassau remained complex until into the 19th century.
The county of Nassau was divided in 1255 ("prima divisio") by Walram and Otto, sons of Count Henry II the Rich. Walram was the founder of the Walramian line, ruling in Weilburg, Idstein, Wiesbaden, etc., i.e. the Nassauian lands south of the river Lahn. Otto was the founder of the Ottonian line, ruling in Dillenburg, Hadamar, Beilstein, later also in Siegen and in Diez, i.e. the Nassauian lands north of the river Lahn.

At the Congress of Vienna, there were still the Duchy of Nassau and the Principalities of Usingen and Nassau-Weilburg. The Orange (Ottonian) branch of the family, which had acquired leadership and then sovereignty in the Netherlands, ceded its German lands to the Walramian line at the Congress. In short order the German lands fell to a single line, with the death of Frederick Augustus, Prince of Usingen and Duke of Nassau. Only the line of Nassau-Weilburg is shown on the Walramian side of the table at left, but some parallel lines, including Usingen, are detailed in the genealogical table below.

The final Duke of Nassau, Adolph, ran afoul of Prussia by picking Austria in the Seven Weeks' War of 1866. Nassau was annexed to Prussia. But then, when Queen Wilhelmina was excluded from the succession to Luxembourg by the Salic Law, the Grand Duchy passed to the dispossessed Duke Adolph. Luxembourg, even with Grand Duchesses, has been in the line of Adolph ever since.

The succession was initially assembled from Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. The genealogy at Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble genealogy was too incomplete to use -- the line of Nassau could not be traced back from Adolph of Nassau and Luxembourg. The genealogy below has now been assembled from the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part 2, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser II [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997]. That contains all of Nassau except for the initial Dutch line of Orange-Nassau. This is covered in Volume II, Part 1, Europäiche Kaiser-, Königs- und Fürstenhäuser I Westeuropa [Andreas Thiele, R. G. Fischer Verlag, Second Edition, 1997]. It should be noted that the initial line of Orange-Nassau ended with William III. His cousins of Nassau-Diez(/Dietz) were already Stadholders of Friesland, and they then inherited the title of Orange and the larger role as candidates for Stadholder of the Netherlands. Here, the genealogy of both Dutch lines is given with the Netherlands.

A key event in the history of the Ottonian line is marriage with the heiress, Claudia, of the Principality of Orange. This small state was far from Germany, a fief of Burgundy, surrounded by the Papal enclave of Avignon, whose Princes recently derived from the Free Counts of Burgundy. This did not involve any material addition of power to the House of Nassau, but the title, passing to William the Silent, quickly became symbolic of the Netherlands, which William came to lead in its struggle for independence from Spain. Long after Orange itself fell to France, in 1715, the name, indeed the color, is thought of as essentially Dutch. The subsequent genealogy of Nassau-Orange is found under the Netherlands. The main line of Orange-Nassau died out with William III, but the leadership of the Netherlands then passed to his cousins, who had become the Stadholders of Friesland. In both the Netherlands and Luxembourg, the male lines eventually failed. In the Netherlands the houses of Mecklenburg, Lippe, and Amsberg, and in Luxembourg the house of Bourbon, provided the husbands.

Hesse begins in the middle of interesting marriages. The first marriage of Henry III of Lower Lorraine and Brabant was to Marie of Hohenstauften, daughter of Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina, daughter of the Emperor Isaac II Angelus. By this marriage the line of the Comneni and Angeli enters much European royalty. But Henry contracted a second marriage. This was to Sophie of Thuringia, daughter of the Landgrave Louis VI. While Henry's son, Henry, from his first marriage succeeded to Brabant, his son from his second marriage, also Henry, was endowed with the Landgravate of Hesse. The domain underwent various divisions and recombinations. Finally, the two sons of Philip the Magnanimous, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, founded two durable divisions, Hesse-Cassel and Hesse-Darmstadt. George, the first of the line of Hesse-Darmstadt, also had a son, Frederick, who founded a third line, Hesse-Homburg. Hesse-Cassel and Hesse-Homburg were annexed by Prussia in 1866, while Hesse-Darmstadt survived, under the German Empire, until the end of World War I.

In 1803 Napoleon made the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. When the Empire was abolished in 1806, the Elector chose to remain an Elector, with or without an Empire. In 1807, however, the area was annexed to France. When the Elector recovered it in 1813, he preserved the previous title. This curious institution survived until the Elector, still without his Empire, chose the wrong side in 1866 and Hesse-Cassel was annexed by Prussia. Earlier, one of the line, Frederick, ended up a King of Sweden, but with no issue, nothing came of it. There are living heirs of this line today.

Hesse turns up, curiously, in the history of the American Revolution, since Hessian troups were hired out to King George III and sent to fight against the colonists. George Washington captured many of them at Trenton in 1776.

George I

Darmstadt1567-1597

Louis V

1597-1626

George II

1626-1661

Louis VI

1661-1678

Louis VII

1678

Ernest Louis

1678-1739

Louis VIII

1739-1768

Louis IX

1768-1790

Louis X,I as Grand Duke

1790-1806

Grand Duke,1806-1830

Louis II

1830-1848

Louis III

1848-1877

Louis IV

1877-1892

Ernest Louis

1892-1918d.
1937

The Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt was made a Grand Duke by Napoleon in 1806, and this survived until the end of the German Empire in 1918.

Of great interest are the marriages made by Hesse-Darmstadt in its final years. The Royal Houses of Britain and Spain, as well as the House of Russia, if all the children of Nicholas II had not been murdered in 1918, are all now descendants of the Grand Duke Louis II. The name that soon may be attached to the British Royal Family began with a morganatic marriage of Alexander of Hesse. Thus, his wife, Julia Theresa, was not considered worthy of the lineage of Hesse, but a special title was created for her and her children: Battenberg.

Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg went on to a distinguished career in the Royal Navy. He was First Sea Lord when World War I began.
During the War, he changed the family name to a more Anglicized "Mountbatten," but still had to resign his position because of his (birth) nationality. Nevertheless, Prince Louis's son went on to his own distinguished career in British service, ultimately as Lord Louis, Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Lord Mountbatten's sister Alice married Prince Andrew of Greece, and their son, Philip, ended up marrying the future Queen Elizabeth. Renouncing his claims to the Greek succession, Philip took the name of his mother's family, Mountbatten, which now passes to the heirs to the British Thone, Prince Charles and his son Prince William. Prince Charles is thus descended from Queen Victoria through both his mother and his father, as well as being descended from Louis II of Hesse in two ways. He regarded Lord Mountbatten, his great uncle, as his "honorary grandfather."

The Saxons were the last German tribe to be conquered by the Franks and Christianized. It took Charlemagne from 782 to 804 to do this, and it sounds like very hard fighting. As a Duchy, Saxony was one of the more powerful and coveted ones. Its earliest Dukes soon seized the Throne of Germany. Otto the Great then defeated the Magyars (955), invaded Italy (961), and began the line of German Emperors (962).

A final showdown over the Germany monarchy, which ended up as a Götterdämmerung in which the Monarchy itself foundered, was between the Hohenstaufen and the Welf Dukes of Saxony. The Welf heirs, although apparently the losers, deprived of Saxony (1138, 1180) and Bavaria (1180), were then compensated with Saxon lands, the Duchy of Brunswick, which grew into the Kingdom of Hanover.

In 1261 there is a division between Albert III of Saxe-Wittenberg and his brother John I of Saxe-Lauenburg. Albert's grandson Rudolf II became Elector of Saxony through the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV in 1356. The Lauenburg line lasted many years, until 1689, as seen below. But when the male line of Wittenburg failed in 1422, the title of Elector of Saxony passed to the Margraves of Meißen, so that later what became "Saxony" was actually east and south of the original Stem Duchy. That came to be called "Upper Saxony," while the lands around the Lower Elbe were "Lower Saxony." Much of the original western part of Saxony, however, became "Westphalia," so that even "Lower Saxony" is somewhat to the east of the original Duchy.

The daughters of Julius Francis, the last Askanian Duke of Saxony, made important marriages. Sibylle married the Gian Gastone, the Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany. Unfortunately, they had no children and were the end of the Medici line. Anna Marie married the great general of the War of the Spanish Succession, Louis William of Baden. Their sons were themselves the last of their line (of Baden-Baden), but they had a sister, Auguste, who married Louis, the Duke of Orléans. All subsequent members of the House of Orléans, including King Louis Philippe of France, indeed all members of the surviving French House of Bourbon, were her descendants.

Saxony is one of the best examples of the fragmentation of Germany through feudal subdivision. From the informal and temporary division of a domain between brothers and then cousins, often undone, as in Bavaria, we progress to formal and permanent divisions, sometimes never undone, as in Saxony. There could be as many Dukes of Saxony as heirs, but there could only be one Elector of Saxony. Thus, the first division of Saxony is between the Electorate and the Duchy. The table at left gives line of the Electors and then Kings of Saxony. The following tables give the genealogy for the Electors and Kings and then, with two tables, for the Duchies.

For many years Electoral Saxony appeared in no way inferior in power to its neighbor Brandenburg. The Electors Frederick Augustus I and Frederick Augustus II were even elected Kings of Poland. Not until Frederick II of Prussia did it start to become clear that Saxony would not be the predominant power of the region. An attempt was made to remedy this through alliance with France during the Napoleonic Era, but all this ended up earning Saxony was a significant loss of territory, to Prussia of course, at the Congress of Vienna. Saxony was reduced to parity with Württemberg as one the smallest of the five Kingdoms of Germany. As such, it was never again a major player in German politics.

The capital of the Electorate and Kingdom of Saxony was Dresden, a beautiful city that later became one of the symbols of the horrors of World War II, when the Allies firebombed it on February 13, 1945. This killed perhaps 135,000 people and all but destroyed the city. A witness was Allied prisoner-of-war and future novelist Kurt Vonnegut, whose Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) recounts his experience (in a science fiction context).

I have now obtained the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part I, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997], which exhaustively covers all this genealogy, and I will be checking and supplementing the information from these other sources as time allows.

The table covers all the Wettin Electors and Kings of Saxony. The Electorate first passes down the senior "Ernestine" line. When the Emperor Charles V defeated the Elector John Frederick and the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at Mühlberg in 1547, he transferred the Electorate to Maurice of the "Albertine" line, where it remained, leading to the Kingdom of Saxony. The Ernestine line then produces all the Dukes of Saxony, shown below.

The claim of William the Brave to Luxemburg derived from his wife, Anna of Hapsburg, who was a granddaughter of the Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg. The generally recognized heiress of Luxemburg, however, was Elizabeth of Görlitz, Sigismund's niece; and William doesn't seem to have made much headway with his claim, especially when Anna died in 1462.

The elections of Frederick Augustus I and II as Kings of Poland did not add measurably to the power of Saxony, since Poland itself was becoming all but ungovernable and would only even exist for 30 more years after them. The episodes may have damaged Saxony in the long run, by drawing the Electors away from domestic improvements.

The Kingdom of Saxony, created by Napoleon, never had much of a chance, apart from French help, to contend against the other German powers. Prussia greatly reduced Saxon territory at the Congress of Vienna.

Saxe-Weimar was the principal Duchy of Saxony. In 1815 it was styled a "Grand Duchy." (I was not clear when this happened but now have been referred to a website that gives the date.) The celebrated Grand Duke Charles Augustus (Karl August) was the friend of Goethe and the protector of Jakob Fries. When Prussia demanded that Fries be prohibited from teaching philosophy, the Duke found him something else to do at Jena, teach physics. Charles Augustus was also the first German prince to grant a constitution. This doesn't sound very exciting now, but it was radical stuff in post-Napoleonic Germany.

There were many regencies in the indicated reigns. Some Dukes didn't even come of age before a premature death. The web source for the Duchies lists reigns minus the regencies. I have largely disregarded the regencies, which would add greatly to the clutter of the diagrams, and have added the regency periods to the reigns proper of the Dukes. One regency is shown, that of the celebrated mother, Anna Amalia, of Charles Augustus.

In 1815 the Kingdom of Saxony existed alongside the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar(-Eisenach) and the Duchies of Saxe-Gotha(-Altenburg), Saxe-Meiningen (also seen spelled "Meinungen"), Saxe-Hildburghausen, and Saxe-Coburg(-Saalfeld). These "Saxon Duchies" were the territorially most complicated part of Germany in that era, as can be seen in the maps of the German Confederation. The beginning of each division can be seen in the genealogical tables above and below. In 1826 a some significant rearrangement occurred: Duke of Ernest I of Saxe-Coburg took over Saxe-Gotha, of which his wife, Louise, was heiress. This created the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, from which Ernest's son Albert married Queen Victoria of England. Albert's elder brother, Ernest II, succeeded to the Duchy; but when Ernest died in 1893, the Duchy was passed to Albert and Victoria's son Alfred, and when he died in 1900, to their grandson Charles Edward. Charles was still Duke in 1918 when all the old feudal thrones were abolished. Although Albert and King Edward VII of England are usually said to be of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the whole family of the House of Saxony, of course, was actually that of the Wettins. Although the name "Windsor" was adopted for the British Royal Family in World War I, Queen Elizabeth II is still really a Wettin, descended from Duke and Elector Frederick I of Saxony.

With the consolidation of Saxe-Gotha and Saxe-Coburg in 1826, some other changes look place. Saxe-Altenburg was detached from Saxe-Gotha and given to the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen, who then passed his original domain to Saxe-Meiningen. The consolidation of those two Duchies creates something remarkable -- a continuous piece of land. The German website doesn't seem to list Hildburghausen with Saxe-Meiningen after 1866, so I wonder if Prussia took it -- or if the duality was just overlooked. All these cities, by the way, can be seen on a modern map of Germany, in the State of Thuringia, lately part of unhappy East Germany.

The many families of the Saxon Kingdom and Duchies ended up providing a resource of noble personages for the rest of Europe. Besides a husband for Queen Victoria, Saxe-Coburg alone also provided spouses for many others, especially when Victoria's many children are counted, and Kings for Belgium, Portugal, and Bulgaria. Victoria's own mother, where her previously non-English name derived, was a sister of Duke Ernest I, as can be seen above.

The story of the House of Brunswick begins much earlier, back in the young days of the Carolingian Empire. The House of Welf contributed some Carolingian wives and then, as the Empire began to split up, came into possession of the Kingdom of Burgundy. This led to marriages to German royal houses, and then to Burgundy itself passing to the German Emperors. Meanwhile, a collateral line of German Welfs grew into powerful nobility. Although the male line ended, a scion of Este who married the Welf heiress fathered what was nevertheless considered a continuation of the Welf house, the "Younger Welfs." These figured in contention for the Imperial Throne with their own cousins, the Hohenstaufen Dukes of Swabia.

The conflict of the Welfs with the Waiblingen, the Hohenstaufen (or Staufer), was reflected in Italy, where the terms Guelf and Ghibelline were identified with, respectively, the Papal and the Imperial parties. These were alliances of convenience, of course, and the Welf Emperor, Otto IV, was not necessarily more pro-Papal than any other German Emperor. But in Germany, the Welf cause, although weakening the state, was not fated for much success. The defeat of Henry the Lion by Frederick I (when Bavaria was conferred upon the Wittelsbachs, who retained it thereafter) and then of Otto IV by Philip of Swabia and the supporters of his nephew, Frederick II, doomed further Welf prospects. As Emperor, however, Frederick endowed Otto IV's nephew, Otto the Child, with part of the original Duchy of Saxony. This was now a Duchy associated with the cities of Brunswick (Braunschweig), and Lüneburg. In it the Welf house would survive, though increasingly identified in name and ambition with its new home. An entire website about the Welfs, continuing down to the present, exists in Germany.

The Duchy of Brunswick (Braunschweig in German) was a part of the old Duchy of Saxony (in now what is called "Lower" Saxony, as opposed to the "Upper Saxony" of the Electorate and Kingdom of Saxony and the Saxon Duchies of Thuringia), named after the city of Braunschweig. Like all mediaeval German states, all the sons of the family shared and shared alike in the common inheritance of the family, and so were all equally Dukes of Brunswick. If collateral lines of descent died out (i.e. had no male heirs, as the Salic Law was observed in Germany), the unity of the realm could be restored. If not, then not.

In time, as attempts were made to institute primogeniture, smaller principalities or duchies (secundogenitures) might be created for younger sons and cousins. The main line of Brunswick was associated with the capital of Lüneburg, while subsidiary domains were created for younger sons, especially in Dannenberg, Wolfenbüttel, Hannover, and Celle. My information on the details of this is spotty. The only domain that eventually became permanently separated from the larger was the Duchy of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. In time, that became simply the Duchy of Brunswick, as the larger Duchy, in turn, acquired a new name. That began with the creation of a Principality of Hannover -- usually written Hanover in English -- in 1638. When all but one of the sons of William the Pious (or the Younger) died without male issue, and all of the sons of George Odysseus followed suit, Ernest Augustus reassembled most of the Duchy and then elevated Hanover to Duchy status. When his brother George William, who was rulling Brunswick-Celle and whose daughter Ernest Augustus had married, died in 1705, the whole Duchy was reassembled, except for Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. The larger Duchy, however, now began to be called Hanover, especially when Ernest Augustus was made an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692, as "Elector of Hanover." The marriage of Ernest Augustus to a granddaughter of James I of England then gave his son George a claim to the Throne of England and Scotland, realized with the "Hanoveran Succession" in 1714.

The line of the Welfs, defeated in Germany, thus many years later came to the powerful Throne of Great Britain and Ireland. The British Parliament was always suspicious of the German interests of the Hanoveran Kings, but Hanover naturally found itself in anti-French alliances just like Britain. After the paroxysm of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, when Hanover was usually under French occupation, the Electorate emerged as one of the Kingdoms of Confederation Germany.

A fateful parting of the ways came in 1837, when Queen Victoria came to the Throne in Britain. The Salic Law prohibited female succession, and Hanover passed to her uncle, Ernest Augustus. In 1866, his son, George V, picked the wrong side in the war between Prussia and Austria. The Prussians occupied Hanover and deposed George, who was thrown upon the hospitality of his English cousin.

That is not quite the end of the story, however. In 1884 the line of the Dukes of Brunswick, of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel that is, came to an end. The son of George V, Ernest Augustus, was the heir. He could have assumed the rule of Brunswick, such as it was under the German Empire, if he had acknowledged the loss of Hanover proper by his family. He refused, and the Ducal Throne remained vacant. As it happened, however, his son, yet another Ernest Augustus, ended up marrying a daughter, Victoria Louise, of Wilhelm II, in 1913. They were endowed with the Duchy. Such enjoyment as they may have derived from this was short-lived, since they were deposed, with all German royalty and ruling nobility, in 1918.

Their grandson, yet even another Ernest Augustus, emerged on the radar screen of popular celebrity in 1999 by marrying Princess Caroline of Monaco. Their daughter, Alexandra, however, would not be the heiress of Hanover (apart from the Salic Law), since the now obligatory next Ernest Augustus had already been produced by a previous marriage.

The genealogical table below was originally almost entirely based on Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble genealogy. This left the exact mechanism of the subdivisions obscure. Some of that could be clarified, a little, with Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. The Dukes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel are given separately. Now, however, I have been able to make some additions and corrections here using the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part I, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997].

Dukes of Brunswick,
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Augustusthe Younger

1635-1666

Rudolf Augustus

1666-1704

Anthony Ulrich

1704-1714

Augustus William

1714-1731

Louis Rodolph

1731-1735

Ferdinand Albert

1735

Charles I

1735-1780

Charles II

1780-1806

Ferdinand William

1806-1815

Charles IIIFrederick

1815-1830d.1873

William Maximilian

1830-1884

interregnum, 1884-1913

Ernest Augustus

1913-1918d.1953

The most striking thing about the genealogy of the Dukes of Brunswick here are the marriages of the daughters of Louis Rodolph, Prince of Blackenbourg. One daughter married a Romanov and was the mother of a Tsar, albeit an ephemeral one; but then another married the Emperor Charles VI and become the fateful mother of Maria Theresa, who for forty years was herself the House of Hapsburg.

This original table here was based on Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble genealogy and Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. This is now modified and expanded on the basis of the Geschichte des Landes Oldenburg, by Albrecht Eckhardt and Heinrich Schmidt [Heinz Holzberg Verlag, Oldenburg, 1987]. Some slight inconsistencies in dating (and the numbering of the Johns) have been rather arbitrarily resolved. Some obscurities remain.

Of the greatest interest about Oldenburg is when one of the House, Christian, becomes the King of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Later one of his grandsons is made the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.

When the main lineage of Oldenburg itself died out in 1667, it fell to the Danish House. One of the line of Holstein-Gottorp married a daughter of Peter the Great of Russia. Another, his first cousin, had Oldenburg settled upon him. One of his brothers became King of Sweden. Another had a son to whom Oldenburg passed in 1823. Subsequent Grand Dukes were all his descendants. Some of this genealogy can be examined below.

The Thuringians were one of the original tribes of Germany, conquered by the Franks in 531. Much of the original Thuringian lands were lost when the Avars and Slavs pushed the Franks behind the Elbe River in the 6th Century.

As the Stem Duchies formed, Thuringia was one of the first, but it had the smallest land area of any Duchy, soon became attached to Saxony (909), and did not play a major part in German politics. Eventually the Saxon Emperors tried to revive a separate Thuringian Duchy. For some reason this was a fitful business and a regular line did not become established. By 1067, there are no further Dukes. Soon the line of Louis the Bearded took over as Landgraves (1130). Louis' origin is variously given as Carolingian, Welf, or Salian. After a bit more than a century, Thuringia then passed to the vigorous March of Meißen.

Lists and treatments of the Thuringian Dukes seem to be curiously hard to come by, and I have relied on a single historical website. The genealogy of the Landgraves, which I have not yet reproduced here, can be found in the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997, pp.233-234].

One reason for the withering of Thuringia may have been the vigorous Marches that grew on the eastern border. These soon overshadowed what should have been the parent Duchy. In 1247, the Margrave of Meißen, Henry the Illustrious of Wettin, acquired the Landgravate of Thuringia, which then lost its separate and original identity. The Landgrave Henry Raspe had forfeited his domain with rebellion against the Emperor Frederick II (away in Sicily) and his son King Conrad IV (in Germany).

Meißen had been going since 928. A number of families contended for the Margavate. Except for Rikdag, they are not given here, but genealogies for five are shown by Andreas Thiele in the cited Stammtafeln [pp.235-236]. The Wettins were the sixth family, actually descended from the last of the original Dukes of Thuringia, Burchard; and under Conrad the Great they secured exclusive possession. In 1423, the Wettins became the Dukes of Saxony -- the opposite of the dynamic in 909. Because of this, the whole area of Meißen, Thuringia, Lusatia, and Brandenburg began to acquire the identity that it mostly still has, as "Upper Saxony."

The whole later complex of the Saxon Duchies was ruled by the large numbers of the House of Wettin. Since one of these, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, later married Queen Victoria of England, the subsequent British Royal Family, down to Queen Elizabeth, have been Wettins, direct patrilineal descendants of the Duke Burchard of Thuringia and the Margrave Conrad the Great of Meißen.

The lineage of the Wettins down to Frederick the Warlike, the first Duke of Saxony, is entirely from the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Parts 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997, pp.237-245]. The website cited for the Dukes of Thuringia above gives a somewhat different list for the Wettin Margraves of Meißen. Here I have followed Thiele and the Regentenlisten und Stammtafeln zur Geschischte Europas, by Michael F. Feldkamp [Philipp
Reclam, Stuttgart, 2002, pp.316-317].

Swabia takes its name from the tribe of the Suevi -- or Suebi, Sueben, or Schwaben. The Suevi had been involved with the confederation of the Alemanni (or "Alamanni"), whose name obscured them in Germany until the Franks absorbed the Alemanni in 806. Meanwhile, however, most of the Suevi had crossed the Rhine (407), romped across Gaul and Spain, and ended up founding an enduring Kingdom in Galicia (409-585). As the name of the Alemanni curiously becomes that for all of Germany in several Romance languages, the name of the Suevi reemerges in the Stem Duchy of Swabia. There is little sense, however, of the suvival of anything in the way of Suevic tribal consciousness.

The Dukes of Swabia went on to become the last great house of German Emperors, the Hohenstaufen, before the possibility of a strong, united German state disappeared. The contest between the Hohenstaufen and the Welfs even briefly raged over Swabia itself. Then, with victory, the Emperor Frederick II relocated to his inheritance in Sicily. Germany largely disintegrated, including Swabia. Württemberg and Baden became the major successor states.

The French Revolution may have changed that. Alsatians became enthusiastic Revolutionaries -- or so I'm told. The Marseillaise was composed in Strasbourg. Other Alsatians, however, fled the Revolution to Germany, or even to Russia. Then, at long last, Germany recovered Alsace, in 1871, to be incorporated into the new German Empire. Although some Alsatians were glad, most had (reportedly) become French patriots, and substantial numbers, over 100,000, fled to France. Germany made no friends, however, among either French or German speakers, by treating the region like a African colony, ruled directly from Berlin, not like a real part of Germany, with local government. France vowed revenge and, after the incredible carnage of World War I, recovered the region. The names of Alsatian cities, however, despite some spelling differences, still largely betray their German origin. Thus, we have Mulhouse (Mülhausen in German), Altkirch, Ensisheim, Niederbronn, Reichshoffen, Pfaffenhoffen, Hochfelden, Kœnigsbourg (Königsburg), and even Kaysersberg (Kaisersberg). In 1999 the French Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (INSEE) counted 548,000 adult speakers of Alsatian German in Alsace, or 39% of the adult population -- though only about 25% of children could speak it. Since France has only one official language -- French -- Alsatian German, although officially listed as one of the languages of France, and the second most spoken regional language, is certainly on the decline and under pressure from the educational and political establishment. I am surprised that it survives as much as it does.

Meanwhile, the Parliament of the European Union now meets in Strasbourg. The government of the European Union is a poorly conceived, undemocratic, and oppressive system, but it's nice that Strasbourg now possesses greater European prominence than it may have had since the Oaths of Strasbourg in the 9th century.

The rest of Swabia would largely be taken up by what would become the Grand Duchy of Baden and the Kingdom of Württemberg.

In the genealogy we see periods where the succession is tending to become hereditary, but then either the male line ends, and the succession jumps to an in-law, or an Emperor, especially Henry III (I of Swabia), grants the Duchy to vassals from outside his family. With the Salians, the Duchy and then the Throne end up in the hands of the Hohenstaufen. The marriages of Gisela (d.1043) not only bring the Kingdom of Burgundy into the Empire, but they lead of into a couple of non-Wettin Margraves of Meißen whose genealogy is not given there. After the Hohenstaufen, the Duchy has effectively broken up into its successor states, and the title, where born, as by Rudolf of Hapsburg, is largely honorary.

Bavaria was the only one of the Stem Duchies from the earliest days of the East Frankish Kingdom to end up preserving both its name and most of its territorial extent. Although no line of German Emperors was ever associated with it, it was the source of much opposition to the Emperors, especially in the form of the Welf Dukes of the 12th and early 13th centuries.

In the final showdown of Henry the Lion of Bavaria and Saxony with the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, Frederick is triumphant and deprives Henry of his fiefs. Bavaria is passed on to the Wittelsbachs, who hold it henceforth, actually all the way until 1918.

There seem to be two common systems of numbering for some of the Dukes of Bavaria. The Welf Henry the Lion can be seen given as Henry XII or as Henry V. Since "XII" clearly numbers Dukes of Bavaria, and "V" is not a number from Saxony (where he was only Henry III), it can only be a number from the House of Welf. My genealogy of Welf, however, must be incomplete, since I only find one other Henry above Henry III.

The Wittelsbachs receive the Duchy of Bavaria in 1180, when it was taken by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa from the Welf Henry the Lion of Saxony. From then on the Wittelsbachs are one of the more important noble families of Europe. The list is confusing because of the custom of the realm being divided among brothers. While the different lines can be easily distinguished in the genealogical diagrams that follow, it is more difficult to show them intuitively in the tables here. In the main table some parallel entries are used. In the tables immediately below, branch lines are broken off. The first table is that of Henry XIII, brother of Louis II, the Severe, and his descendants.

They are part of the history of those countries, which end up in the hands of the Dukes of Burgundy.

Stephen IIIthe Magnificent

1375-1413

Louis VIIthe Bearded

1413-1443,d.1447

Louis VIIIthe Younger

1443-1445

The third table is that of Stephen III, the Magnificent, brother of John II and Frederick, and his descendants.

It took a long time for primogeniture to be accepted among these German houses, and meanwhile, domains were divided and subdivided, often permanently. Bavaria, however, was preserved by the circumstance that branch lines died out. Ultimately the main Bavarian line of the Wittelsbachs itself died out, and the succession passed to the Wittelsbach Electors of the Palatinate.

The following table shows the main Bavarian and Dutch lines of the Wittelsbachs. The Palatine line is continued below.

In the history of the Palatinate, the most interesting episode may have been the bid of Frederick V for the Kingdom of Bohemia, after the Thirty Year's War began there with a revolt (the "Defenestration of Prague") against the Hapsburgs in 1618. Frederick was defeated so quickly that he came to be known as the "Winter King" of Bohemia. Imperial troups then descended on the Palatinate and deposed Frederick. The Electorship was passed to his cousins in loyal Bavaria (1623). After all the changing fortunes of the War, however, an Electorship was finally restored to the Palatine at the Peace of Westphalia (1648). But this was not quite the end of the story for Frederick. He had married a daughter, Elizabeth, of King James I of England. One of his daughters, Sophie, married Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover. This gave their son, George, a claim to the throne of England. When the British Parliament rejected the surviving Catholic Stuarts, George succeeded to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland (they also said France at the time) as King George I in 1714. This "Hanoveran Succession" then provided the ruling House of Britain until Queen Victoria.

The genealogical tables for all the Wittelsbachs began with Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble genealogy. This left many gaps, especially in that the descent of the Dukes of Zweibrücken, who succeeded to the Duchy and Electorship of Bavaria in 1799, shortly to become the Kings of Bavaria, was not given. Christopher Haußmann of Munich helped out by informing me that the original Zweibrücken line, missing in Tompsett, led to three Kings and one Queen of Sweden, Charles X, XI, XII and Ulrika. It is after the Swedish Wittelsbachs die out that Christian III becomes the Duke of Zweibrücken. The full genealogy I have found in Die Herzöge in Bayern by Hermann von Witzleben [Prestel-Verlag München, 1976]. A narrative description of the Wittelsbach genealogy can be found here.

The middle of the diagram below is crowded with the descendants of Wolfgang of Zweibrücken. The seniority of his sons is numbered. To the eldest went Neuburg, to the middle, Zweibrücken, and to the youngest, Birkenfeld. Within Neuburg, we then get the junior line of Sulzbach. With the extinction of the line of Electors from Simmern in 1685, the title passes to Neuburg, and then in 1742 to Sulzbach. Meanwhile, the title of Zweibrücken, which itself had passed to (numbered) junior lines in Landsberg and Kleeburg (Kings of Sweden), had passed to Birkenfeld in 1731. When the Sulzbach line ended in 1799, having inherited Bavaria itself in 1777, it all passed to Birkenfeld-Zweibrücken. Needless to say, the family tragedy of dying cousins served to consolidate the Wittelsbach holdings and prevented the kind of fragmentation seen in the Saxon Duchies. The cramped part of this diagram, drawn for a screen 640 pixels wide (the diagram itself is only 613), is unfolded for a screen 1024 pixels wide (the diagram itself is 995) here. The lines of succession are numbered in sequence in that diagram, with cues given for transfers, and some present day descendants of King Ludwig III are shown -- especially noteworthy is the marriage of the Duchess Sophie to Aloys the Heir of Liechtenstein.

Bavaria became a Kingdom as an ally of Napoleon, but unlike other such German allies, it gained rather than lost land at the Congress of Vienna. This made it the largest state in Germany after Austria and Prussia.

The blue and white of Bavaria is now internationally familiar from the crest of BMW (Bavarian Motor Works) automobiles -- popularly known as "Beamers."

King Ludwig "the Mad" of Bavaria, who built fairy-tale castles, like the famous Neuschwanstein (at right), promoted musicians, like Richard Wagner, and supposedly had an affair with the sculptress, and future Texan, Elizabet Ney, killed himself (or was murdered?) after being declared insane and deposed in 1886.

Carinthia (German Kärnten) began as a March dependency of Bavaria, granted by the Dukes of Bavaria. It quickly becomes a pawn in German Imperial politics, often held by close relatives of the Emperors, or the Emperor himself. The possession of Carinthia usually carried with it the Margravate of Verona, the nearby division of Italy constituting the hinterland of Venice, centered on the Roman city of Aquileia.

From Imperial politics, we begin to pass into local politics, with rule by the Houses of Eppstein, Sponheim, and Görz-Tirol. Indeed, this approaches the period when Germany begins to fragment beyond hope. But Imperial politics returns to this area. The struggle of Ottokar of Bohemia with Rudolf of Hapsburg, which decided the fate of nearby Austria, would now decide the fate of Carinthia also. After a brief return to local rule, the Duchy becomes permanently attached to Austria, as indeed it still is, even after the passing of the Hapsburgs.

Austria is so closely associated with the Hapsburgs that it is a little startling to realize that it didn't begin that way. The original line of Margraves were the Babenbergs. Obtaining Austria for the Hapsburgs turned out to be one of the principal achievements of the first notable member of that house, the Emperor Rudolf I. Dante, who wanted Rudolf in Italy trying to restore the Roman Empire, put him in Hell for such limited goals; but Rudolf himself understood all too well how little power was left in the German Monarchy and how a solid territorial base would be needed if his family, and any future Emperors therefrom, were to have a hope for a predominant status. This was an effective strategy, and Austria itself eventually became an Empire, just not the Roman one (or even the German one).

The flag of Austria is supposed to have originated on the Third Crusade. At the siege of Acre (whose Classical name, Ptolemais, is also sometimes seen) in 1191, the tunic of Duke Leopold V was completely covered with blood, except for a white band where his belt had covered it. Raising his shirt as a standard during the fight, he was offically granted the use of the colors by the Emperor Henry VI. Conducting the siege at Acre was King Richard I of England, whom Leopold then kidnapped on his way home and held for ransom in Austria. This became a matter for English romance when Richard's delayed return allowed his brother John to exercise enough misrule to provoke the resistance of people like Robin Hood. Unfortunately, when Richard did return, he soon died, and John's misrule soon provoked even the nobility, who at Runnymede forced him to sign the Magna Carta.

Putting together the story of the Hapsburgs ("Habsburg" in German, which is becoming more common in English) has been a daunting task. The tables and genealogies here are now increasingly based on the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997]. Initially I relied on more readily available sources in English. Two books specifically about the Hapsburgs that I had, The House of Habsburg by Adam Wandruszka [Doubleday Anchor, 1965] and The Habsburgs, Embodying Empire by Andrew Wheatcroft [Viking, 1995], were not bad, but incomplete; and the Kingdoms of Europe by Gene Gurney [Crown Publishers, New York, 1982] had full lists of Hapsburgs. Wandruszka had better genealogies (Gurney, none). One problem is sorting out who was ruling what and when, since Austrian possessions where passed out to the many sons of the usually large Hapsburg families. Until 1379 this did not imply any real division of the possessions. Then we have a real division between the sons of Albert II, namely Albert III (the Albertine line) and Leopold III (the Leopoldine line). A further Tyrolean branch of the Leopoldine line began with Frederick IV, son of Leopold, in 1406, as follows.
The genealogy at right traces back the earliest Hapsburgs. That this goes all the way to Louis the Pious may be a little suspicious, but there may only be one link that is really questionable. Nevertheless, this all passes through very obscure people in a very obscure period. But it is possible. If true, it makes the Hapsburgs cousins of the Free Counts of Burgundy, derived from the great Count Otto William. Habsburg itself was a castle in the Aargau, founded by Count Radbot, a name that curiously never occurs again in the Hapsburg line. Aargau and Thurgau are now both Cantons of Switzerland. The Hapsburgs got tossed out, which is a tribute to the heroism and independent spirit of the Swiss. But it may have also been that the Hapsburgs had bigger fish to fry. The Emperor Maximilian, who recognized Swiss autonomy in 1499, was already juggling Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Burgundy, and Spain, all of which may have seemed worth the sacrifice.

The numbering of the names cannot be accounted for without listing all the Alberts, Rudolfs, Ottos, Fredericks, and Leopolds, some of whom figure in junior lines or who died young and who cannot be considered to have discharged serious responsibilities of rule (and the numbers all restart from I after the acquisition of Austria). In the table below, these figures are listed with light background and death date only. Even for the important members of the dynasty, however, what and when they ruled was not given by either Wandruszka or Wheatcroft. Gurney's list sometimes raised questions that it does not answer. For instance, Frederick V and his brother Albert VI succeeded to rule at the death of their father, Ernst the Iron Duke, in 1424 (according to Thiele, Gurney, & Wandruszka; Wheatcroft had 1427); but Gurney only lists their rule from 1457, when the death of their young cousin Ladislas ended the Albertine line and reunified the Austrian domain (except for the Tyrol). Frederick had already been crowned Emperor by then -- the only Hapsburg crowned in Rome by the Pope. Things like this get cleared up by Thiele: In 1424 Frederick was only 9 and Albert only 6 years old. Frederick began to rule in 1436, Albert in 1439/40.

Rudolf IV of Hapsburg got himself elected Emperor, the first after the Great Interregnum (1254-1273) which followed the fall of the Hohenstaufen, and used his power to obtain the Duchy of Austria, killing Ottokar II, Duke of Austria and King of Bohemia, at the Battle of Dürnkrut in 1278. He never bothered to try and get himself crowned Emperor by the Pope. So, at the time, he was never more than "King of the Romans." This earned him the dislike of Dante, who wanted an Emperor in Italy, and who then put Rudolf in Hell. Realistically, however, the day of Emperors in Italy was over, and the Emperors that Dante liked better, like Louis IV, accomplished absolutely nothing with Italian campaigns. What Rudolf did do effectively began to lay the foundations for the power of an Emperor Dante would have loved, the Hapsburg Charles V, who brought the power of Spain to bear on Europe and who humbled Popes (his army even sacked Rome in 1527). Meanwhile, after Rudolf the Hapsburgs needed to build their power in the area. Building a domain down to Istria and the Tyrol made the House of Hapsburg, from then on, the House of Austria.

Leopoldine Line:
Tyrol, 1406

Frederick IVthe Empty

1406-1439

Sigmund

1439-1490,d. 1496

Genealogical diagrams for the Hapsburgs beginning with the Duke/Emperor Rudolf I can be found with the German Emperors and with the Kings of Spain. The Imperial diagram also includes all the Kings of Spain and many of the intermarriages between the lines, which produced several grotesque features, like the "Hapsburg Lip." The details of the genealogy in the table at left, which covers the period before the era of Hapsburg predominance in Europe, is show below

This genealogy is entirely from the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997]. More genealogical information can be found, not just under the Empire and Spain, linked above, but also under Burgundy, which the Emperor Maximillian acquired, and Hungary and Bohemia, where the Hapsburgs often intermarried and which the Emperor Ferdinand I acquired. Note that neither Charles nor Ferdinand are traditional Hapsburg names -- the former is Burgundian and the latter Spanish. Maximilian is not a traditional Hapsburg name either, but it doesn't seem to have any historical precedent, unless it is Rome.

The North March or Northmark (Nordmark) begins rotating among several different families, which sometimes even divide the domain between them. We don't really settle into one dynasty until the Askanians, when the identity of the domain changes to Brandenburg.
For a century, from 1319 to 1417, Brandenburg becomes an Imperial holding, for the families of both the Wittelsbach and Luxemburg Emperors, before the Emperor Sigismund fatefully bestows it on the Hohenzollerns. Early in this period it becomes one of the permanent Electorates of the Empire under the Golden Bull of 1356.

The genealogy here is entirely form the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part 1, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser I [Andreas Thiele, Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997]. The table was originally from some other sources, and the first Margrave, Sigfried, does not appear in Thiele.

When Frederick I became Margarve and Elector of Brandenburg in 1417, none could have foreseen how this poor northern state would become the most powerful in Germany, and the family itself claim a crown of Emperors -- or how it would all be squandered in one terrible and foolish war, not to mention the even more terrible and vicious war by which the first was supposed to be avenged.

Although Brandenburg had been one of the major German states for some time, major enough to rate an Electoral Vote, it is hard to imagine it growing into a Great Power without the additions that began to accrue during the reign of John Sigismund. Inherited territories in the Rhine Valley (in the dispute over the Jülich-Cleve Succession), and the Duchy of Prussia, not only gave the state anchors in both east and west, but brought the domain that would soon give its name, Prussia, to the whole -- and become a byword for military strength and ruthless conquest.

Yet for a long time the postion of Brandenburg was precarious. Landlocked, with no natural frontiers, and no easy means of communication across the central lands, let alone to the outlying domains in east and west, Brandenburg was vulnerable to any insult. Its postion was completely hopeless during the Thirty Years War, when half its population was lost through starvation, massacre, and flight. The lurid stories of atrocities in the War, although so extreme as to engender some scepticism, nevertheless appear to be generally true, thanks to multiple contemporary testaments, often from participants.

From this nadir, Brandenburg set out on the path to becoming a Power thanks to the wisdom and industry of The Great Elector, Frederick William. By diplomacy, internal reforms, and prudent military measures, the Elector obtained favorable additions to Brandenburg from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, secured recognition of independence and sovereignty in Prussia from Sweden (which had designs) and from Poland (which had been suzerain since the days of the Teutonic Knights), and finally created a European sensation by destroyed a superior invading Swedish army at Fehrbellin in 1675.

Sovereignty in Prussia not only elevated the status of Brandenburg on the European stage, but it also contributed to Frederick William's efforts to overcome the remnants of local Mediaeval paricularism and autonomy in his possessions. For example, the Rhenish possessions sometimes relied on the Dutch to resist the Elector; and the Estates of Prussia had even retained the right of appeal to the King of Poland to foil Electoral initiatives. After Frederick William and the Swedes defeated the Poles at Warsaw in 1656, his authority in Prussia was secured; but then, after the Polish speaking Elector actually became an ally of Poland in 1658, Brandenburger arms would be historically vindicated at Fehrbellin. Many retreating and even surrendering Swedes were killed by local peasants who still had fresh memories of the atrocities of the Thirty Years War.

Until 1701 no German states were kingdoms. Then Frederick III asked a favor of the Emperor Leopold I as a condition of entering the War of the Spanish Succession -- a royal crown. This was granted, but Frederick didn't want to assume it for a domain under the jurisdiction of the Emperor, so he chose to use it for Prussia, which was outside the Empire. On the other hand, there seems to have been some scruple about turning Prussia itself into a Kingdom, so at first the locution "King in Prussia" was used to leave things a little vague, which occasioned a bit of amusement in Europe. Soon the subtlety was forgotten; and all the lands of Brandenburg began to be absorbed into the identity of a Baltic people who had actually disappeared under the conquest of the Teutonic Knights. The Knights themselves now contribute their colors, black and white, to Prussia and, later, Imperial Germany. Meanwhile, the Pope protested, without effect, that a Catholic monarch had granted a royal title without Papal consent. The Hapsburgs would regret the act themselves, but it could not be undone. Prussia as Prussia had arrived; and a paradoxical Kingdom within the erstwhile Kingdom of the Eastern Franks would simply add to the incoherence of the obsolescent Empire.

On the genealogy above, we see the "elder" lines of Bayreuth and Ansbach. The "younger" lines, which descend from the Elector John George, can be examined on a popup. It is noteworthy that two marriages of Brandenburg-Ansbach led to subsequent Kings of Sweden and of England.

Frederick William I

1713-1740

Protestants discovered in Alpine valleys of Salzburg, 1731; their Exodus to Prussia, 1732

Frederick the Great turned Prussia into a Great Power, though he was able to do this because of the army that his father had lovingly prepared but then sparingly used [cf. Sidney B. Fay & Klaus Epstein, The Rise of Brandenburg- Prussia to 1786, 1937, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964; and Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, the Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, Belknap Press, Harvard, 2006]. Frederick used, even exhausted, the army first to seize Silesia from Austria (the War of the Austrian Succession, 1740-1748) and then to defend it against the nearly universal alliance (France, Sweden, Russia, & Austria) that Maria Theresa prepared against him (the Seven Years War, 1756-1763). After writing a book attacking the Realpolitik of Machiavelli, Frederick's practice came to look like the most cynical, opportunistic, and self-serving application of Machiavelli's advice. If not for his profound military genius, and a bit of luck, Frederick would not have gotten away with it. His alliance with Britian during the Seven Years War earned him the tribute of "King of Prussia," Pennsylvania -- a name that fortunately survived the anti-German name changes of World War I.

In the last years of his long reign, der alte Fritz ("Old Fritz") was more than happy to avoid war and instead entertain Enlightenment philosophes. Frederick probably never met Immanuel Kant in Königsberg, but Kant dedicated the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) to his Minister of State, Baron von Zedlitz. Frederick became the archetype of the "enlightened despot," whose characteristic principle is supposed to have been, "You can say whatever you like, but you will do what I tell you." This did not stop him, however, from initiating the partition of Poland. Frederick obtained West Prussia in 1772, as seen on the map above. Subsequent partitions, in 1793 and 1795, were in part to preclude Polish enthusiasm for the French Revolution. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the partition of 1795 and much of that of 1793 were ceded to Russia.

Prussia stepped up from the ranks of a Great Power to a Predominant Power thanks to Otto von Bismarck. The Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871) inflicting a crushing and humiliated defeat on France, ended the reign of the Emperor Napoleon III, and then provided the leverage for the unification of Germany into a new German Empire headed by Prussia itself. Wilhelm I, without even a nod to the Pope or the Catholicism of earlier Empires in Francia, turned memories of the Holy Roman Empire into a new German Empire, the "Second," far more unified and stronger than anything had been in the area for centuries. The genealogy for the Emperors is given here, but the table and historical commentary are continued on the Francia page.

In the genealogy here, however, we see some of the family after the fall of the German Empire. Ironically, the Hohenzollern, so responsible for the fall of the Russian Empire, have now intermarried with the heirs of the Romanovs. The present heiress of Romanov, the Grand Duchess Maria, is now the mother of a Hohenzollern heir of Russia itself. Well, Russians might have at least entertained the notion of the Grand Duke Vladimir, or Maria, as a constitutional monarch for the new Russia, but a Hohenzollern would probably be out of the question.

There are a couple of interesting historical points about Mecklenburg. One is that this Germanicized Slavic area east of the Elbe seems to have an actual Slavic ruling family -- "Pribeslaw" is not a German name. One might conclude, then, that however great German colonization was, it overwhelmed the local population culturally, but not demographically or politically.

The second point is what happened during the Thirty Years War. An Imperial army under the great general, Albrecht von Wallenstein, after the Imperial victory at Lutter (1626), invaded Northern Germany and cleared Protestant forces out of Mecklenburg. This was disturbing enough to the secular German Electors, that the Emperor Ferdinand II (1619-1637) was threatened with a dispute over the election of the next Hapsburg. He dismissed Wallenstein. Meanwhile, however, France had encouraged (with a subsidy) the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus (1611-1632) to join the fray, which he did in 1630. Two great victories, at Breitenfeld (1631) and Lützen (1632, against a recalled Wallenstein) changed the balance of power, and got Wallenstein out of Mecklenburg, but Gustavus was actually killed at Lützen. Wallenstein himself was shortly to be assassinated, on orders of the Emperor. The Swedish army was then broken at Nördlingen (1634) by a united Austrian and Spanish army, but the Protestant cause was retrieved by the entry of (Catholic) France into the war (1635).

Of all the confusing and obscure European territories, Schleswig-Holstein has got to be one of the worst. Holstein was a fief of the Empire, while Scheswig was a fief of Denmark. They were united in 1386, and further united when Christian I of Denmark inherited the whole lot. The complications then come from the dispersal of the Duchies among Danish heirs. The line of Holstein-Gottorp is examined below under Oldenburg. Here the lines of Holstein-Sonderburg, Holstein-Beck, and Holstein-Augustenburg are followed, since Holstein-Beck ends up inheriting the Throne of Denmark, while Augustenburg furnished the Prussian candidate for Schleswig-Holstein in 1863. The Prussian/German argument was that the Augustenburg line (deriving from Duke Ernest Gunther, born in 1609) was senior to the Beck line (from Augusus Philip, born in 1612). This didn't matter for the Danish succession, which passed through female heirs of King Frederick V, but it wasn't accepted in Germany, where the Salic Law ruled out female succession. It wouldn't have mattered for Schleswig and Holstein either, if Prussia and Austria hadn't been willing to go to war in 1864 to press the German claim. On the other hand, Otto von Bismarck was not really interested in the national aspirations of the Germans in Schleswig-Holstein, who had revolted against Denmark in 1848, or in the niceties of the laws of feudal succession. He wanted the territories for Prussia and got them after arranging a pretext to attack Austria in 1866. The Dukes of Augustenburg never did rule in the Duchies. As it happened, by 1931 the male line died out and the Duchies could have been claimed, if the Salic Law could have been overlooked, by the Emperor of Germany himself, who had married the heiress -- if Wilhelm II by then were still Emperor of Germany, which he wasn't. All monarchial holdings were forfeit at the end of World War I in 1918. In 1920, after a plebiscite, part of Schleswig was returned to Denmark.

The table here was originally put together using Brian Tompsett's Royal and Noble Genealogy and Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies. This left many genealogical questions unanswered. Gordon's last Duke, Charles, is not given by Tompsett. Nor did I know from their pages who was the Duke Christian of Augustenburg (and his son, Frederick), upon whose claims the German case was made against the incorporation of the Duchies into the Danish Crown. Now, however, I have found very complete information in the Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume II, Part 2, Europäische Kaiser-, Königs-, und Fürstenhäuser II, Nord-, Ost- und Südeuropa [Andreas Thiele, Second Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997]. The information is so complete, indeed, that it will be some time before it can all be organized, or that it could ever all be presented in digestible form. The genealogy below, therefore, begins with the Duke Nicholas of Holstein-Rendsburg. Eventually, the earlier Schauenburg line, at least, can all be given. Even the Stammtafeln, however, do not have maps, so the territorial forms of the divisions and subdivisions of the Duchies must remain mysterious for the time being.

A further detail is of interest here. A younger son of Christian IX of Denmark became King of Greece as George I. King George's grandson is Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the consort of the Queen Elizabeth II of England. Philip, however, does not identify himself as a member of the House of Oldenburg-Schleswig-Holstein because he renounced his claim to the Greek Throne and took the family name of his mother, Mountbatten (from Battenberg, a subsidiary line of Hesse-Darmstadt). Nevertheless, the English Throne is due to pass one day to a direct male descendant of Christian I of Oldenburg, King of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

Pomerania (German Pommern) was a historic territory on the shores of the Baltic Sea. It only enters history fully when the Duke Wartislaw I, of the House of Griffin (German Greifen, Polish Gryfici) becomes a vassal of Duke Boleslaw III (1102-1138) of Poland in 1121. This changed shortly, with the Duchy becoming the vassal instead of Duke Henry III the Lion (1142-1180, d.1195) of Saxony in 1164, and then directly of the Emperor in 1181, when Frederick Barbarosa deposed Henry. Pomerania thus becomes part of the Holy Roman Empire. Considering that the Dukes have Slavic names, this is an interesting case (like Bohemia) of non-German people being integrated into what now looks like a German Empire. If one then looks for some kind of racial animus against the Dukes, it does not seem to occur. Instead, the Dukes intermarry with European royalty, and one of them, Eric I, even becomes the King of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The Duchy comes to an end with a problem all too characteristic of Mediaeval government, the failure of the male line. Bogislaw XIV dies without sons in 1637 (after abdicating in 1634). As it happened, this was in the middle of the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), with the Duchy occupied for the duration by Sweden. In the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), Sweden received the Duchy West of the River Oder (Hither Pomerania), while Prussia received the rest of the Duchy, which extended well East of the Oder (Further Pomerania). Today, the Oder is itself the boundary between Germany and Poland, so Further Pomerania has again become part of Poland.

Meanwhile, Pomerania between Further Pomerania and the Vistula River had a separate history. It remained under Polish suzerainty as the Duchy of Pomerelia (German Pommerellen), sometimes subdivided, until taken over by the Teutonic Knights in 1309. In 1410, Poland and Lithuania inflicted a crushing defeat on the Knights at Tannenberg. By 1466, this had translated into considerable territorial loss, whereby Pomerelia and more became part of Poland. It was the Poles who began applying the name "Prussia" to these territories. When the Kingdom of Prussia partitioned Poland in 1772 and annexed the territories, Pomerelia and the rest became "West Prussia." Modern Poland has restored the name Pomerania.

The genealogy here is based on Andreas Thiele's Erzählende genealogische Stammtafeln zur europäischen Geschichte, Volume I, Part 2, Deutsche Kaiser-, Königs-, Herzogs- und Grafenhäuser II [Third Edition, R. G. Fischer Verlag, 1997, pp.505-514]. In traditional fashion, the Duchy was for most of its history divided between different members of the family. It was hard to organize a succession list based on the genealogy, and so many of the dates are derived from the list of Dukes at Wikipedia -- though not all individuals in that list are accounted for in the genealogy.